always…
not much eating but enjoying the view..contemplating and calm down a bit to focus on the descend ..which is preferentially steep,rocky,technical stuff..
and if it is my birthday ..then even with candlelight.. 🙂

I LOVE stopping, chilling, chatting, snacking, admiring the views, take a few snaps, re-fuelling, exchanging war stories regarding the last techy section, and of course to acclimatise to the lower oxygen levels that are associated with the uphill trails (yeah wtf is with that!?).

For me, riding is massively social, I ride with my best friends. I love capturing the moment for prosperity, and I’m also into photography so I get to do two things I love at once. I find the ‘quit taking photos and enjoy the moment’ point of view extremely patronising, for the following comic can sum up more eloquently than I:

I also have this theory that food tastes at its best when you are on a bike ride, so I’ll bust out the big guns when at the top of the mountain (Ferrero Rocher, After Eights, Lindt bears, Belgian chocolate shells, etc), at first it was to see people’s reactions to being offered an After Eight at the peak of mam tor (or equivalent), but now it’s just an excuse to have nice chocolates.

I think the only times I loathe stopping is if the weather is particularly inclement or if we’re training for something and the stoppages are too frequent.

Most of the time i stop briefly at the top to take in the views, tend not to eat there unless its summer, get too cold.

One of my abiding memories is having a lie down in a hollow, halfway up the climb to walna scar, waiting for the rest of the group, munching jelly babies, sun beating down, staring at a clear blue sky, already weary and psyched by some great riding, awesome descent to come and some of my wife’s pineapple upside down cake waiting at the bottom, i was thinking, there is no finer way to spend a bank holiday weekend. Brilliant!

I like to stop and appreciate where I am, what I’m doing and just pause for a moment. It came from hillwalking and having a little empathy for the slower members of the group and generally appreciating where we were and the effort it took to get there.
Going out with Munroe-Baggers (not all are the same) made it more important to me. Their focus was on ticking off something on a list, so they were always fixated on the next one and would charge off. I wanted to pause for a moment and enjoy where I was at that moment.

@noteeth@jaymoid +1 I bike just as much for the views and countryside as the biking itself, its almost a weekly pilgrimage for me, the week doesn’t feel complete till i’ve reached the top O the trail 8)